home Expedition narratives Expedition books can be very similar. There are, after all, often limited options - climb the mountain or don't climb the mountain - survive or die!
I believe these books, either by the quality of the writing or content, set themselves apart from the average.


Touching the Void Simpson
If you are that one person who still has not read this book, buy it now!
The ultimate mountaineering survival "epic" . Unputdownable. Now published in 13 languages.
Other Joe Simpson titles:-
This Game Of Ghosts
Sequel to "Touching the void" continues the tale, the recovery, early life, alpine climbs, Greenpeace Nelson's Column and another disaster.
"Far from avoiding the trials of life, the danger enables 'ordinary' life to be seen in a true perspective, to be appreciated and cherished. And the addiction lies more in the setting off than it does in the arrival; it lies in deciding to go, to act, rather than in the achievement. It is hidden in the mournful horn of the ship, the roar of the aircraft jets,and the steam blasted whistle of the train racing across empty lands towards unknown futures."
Storms of Silence
The nature of aggression and violence, from the Chinese in Tibet to skinheads in the local. Gangchempo, Cho Oyo, Huascaran and Ranrapalca.
Dark Shadows Falling
Everest and Pumori, plus the ethics of commercial climbs taking clients to the high peaks and climbers being left to die on the hill.
Andrew Greig is another highly readable writer:-
Summit Fever Grieg
Mustagh Tower 1984
after Mustagh...
"I pretended to give his jest serious consideration. 'When?'
'Next spring.'
'Sounds all right.I didnt know you were interested in Everest'...
...I sat down, lit a cigarette, felt the familiar rasp in my throat, considered this latest fantasy for a couple of seconds.
'Yes', I said.
'For f***'s sake, Mal',I said
Kingdoms Of Experience Greig
Everest NE Ridge1985
"We're gamblers, we've got no cash; we have lives, we love them, that's the stake"

Into the Wild Krakauer 
An investigation into the short life of a young man who, rejecting the fruits of the "American dream" wanders into the wilderness of Alaska to live off the land. Along the way the reader gains insights into an alternative U.S. sub-culture a million miles from the materialism of mainstream N.America. 
Although the book is not directly about climbing, the author relates the motivation of Chris McCandless to his own climbing experiences and examines the sometimes fatal pull of the wilderness.
The Death Zone Dickinson
An account of an Everest attempt in the contrasting company of Alan Hinkes and Brian Blessed, the actor. This book does not gloss over the day to day stresses high altitude climbing puts on the human body, nor the horror of having to step over the dead on this overcrowded mountain.This is however, not a sensational account as the title might suggest. Read it before you sign up for the big hill!
The Shining Mountain Boardman
Prize winning account of Changabang expedition, set apart from the average by the quality of the writing.See omnibus edition below


The Boardman/Tasker Omnibus
Savage Arena, The Shining Mountain,Sacred Summits and Everest the cruel Way
Mountain marathons
The Munros In Winter Moran
A number of writers have related their rounds of the Munros or similar and looking up to my bookshelves I can see half a dozen of them there, all unfinished. The only two I have read to the end are Dave Hewitt's "Walking the Watershed" published by TAC and "The Munros in Winter" by Martin Moran. Even so it suffers the way all these books do as by half way through the hills start to pass by in a blur. However, those familiar with winter Scottish hills will be able to engage with this book.
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The Kurt Diemburger Omnibus ISBN-1898573263
A collection of Diemburger's books, Summits and Secrets,The Endless Knot and Spirits of the Air.Book I covers his first ascents of Broad Peak and Dhaulagiri and early climbs in the alps. Book two covers the tragic events on K2 with the late Julie Tullis.Book three covers his recent exploits.Over thirty years of Himalayan climbing in one volume!

Sacred Summits - John Muirs Greatest Climbs edited by Graham White
The antidote to peak bagging.

"This was my method of study: I drifted about from rock to rock, from stream to stream. Where night found me, thats where I camped. When I discovered a new plant, I sat down beside it, for a minute or a day, to make its aquaintance and try and hear what it had to say. When I came to moraines or ice scratches upon the rocks, I traced them, learning what I could of the glaciers that formed them........." 
Muir's methods paid divedends, going against conventional thinking he correctly deduced how the Yosemitee mountains had been formed. 

Collection of climbing accounts by or about the famed Scottish/American outdoor pioneer, mainly set in the S.W. USA (where he lived) and Alaska . Muir's efforts were instrumental in the creation of the US National Parks and the Sierra club. Muir loved the wilderness in all its aspects and was much more than a mountaineer, setting off for weeks at a time with only some hardened bread in a small rucksack, sleeping out without a tent.

The Magic of the Munros Butterfield
Coffee table photographic companion to "The High Mountains of Britain and Ireland " high quality images (243) covering the Munros by a variety of photographers. Royalties to John Muir Trust. Divided into 6 sections with a painting* prefacing each section the 36cm width of the page greatly enhances the enjoyment of the many full page photographs.
*Very much in the realist mould I would have preferred a more impresionistic style to counterpoint the photography- but this is a purely personnal preference.
Fiction Many feel that climbing needs no fiction as the reality contains sufficient drama. However, a few works do justify attention, amoung these "One Green Bottle" undoubtably deserves its place

One Step In the Clouds compiled by Salkeld and Smith (inc One Green Bottle)
31 short stories and 7 longer pieces including Elizabeth Coxhead's One Green Bottle (1951). An account of a disadvantaged woman's escape from a Birkenhead slum to the world of Welsh rockclimbing.
From Chapter 1 of One Green Bottle
"The inhabitants of Tooley Street lived in the half-dark, like snails at the bottom of an area grating. They saw no green, and the sky was obscured for them by the smoke from the dockyards and the steamers on the river, and the fumes from the gasworks penetrated their lungs and kept their curtains permanently grey. The year wheeled through its glittering pageant and left them totally unaware."
The heroine Cathy has no climbing boots...
"Breakfast was so early that they ate it half asleep; but on the drive home she had leisure to consider her feelings, for Leonard was silent at last. He had got what he wanted, and looked as pleased as Punch.
I did it for the boots, she told herself over and over. I did it for the boots.And from somewhere there came an urgent echo:Cathy! I done it for you."
Other longer works included are "Mother Goddess Of The World" "The Ice Chimney" "North Wall" "Like Water And Like Wind" "Solo Faces" and "Vortex".

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